Andreas Züst (1947–2000) was a
photographer,
a
painter, and an
art
collector; a social butterfly, a publisher, and a
film
producer; a bibliophile, a
scientist,
and a patron of the arts. Beginning in the early 1970s, he documented and
photographed Zürich's art and culture scene, transcending the boundaries
between subcultures, high culture, and pop culture. It was with this same
broad-minded spirit that he later became a collector and publisher of (art)
books.
At the time of his death, Züst's estate included an almost incomprehensible
number of his own works, a collection of some 1,500 artworks, a private
library of 10,400 books, and some ten thousand recordings (mostly vinyl
records, but also cassette tapes and compact discs). Among these
possessions, left at his Bachtel house, was also a collection of artifacts
from the Arctic—the great passion of his last years. It included rare
handwritten records, but also curios—scrimshaw and plastic figurines of
polar bears. The house also contained numerous additional smaller
collections—of magazines (
Der Spiegel,
China im Bild,
Billboard);
kitschy Nazi memorabilia; and meteorites of various sizes.
Today, Züst's recordings and various smaller collections have been mostly
scattered and disassembled. His daughter,
Mara
Züst, has supervised his artistic legacy since 2000. In 2002, the
Arctic artifacts were sold at auction. In 2004, the art collection was put
on permanent loan to the Aargauer Kunsthaus and, since 2010, Züst's library,
now known as the Bibliothek Andreas Züst, has been accessible to the public
at its location in St.Anton Oberegg. In addition to regular exhibitions,
various publications of his work and on the subject of his efforts have
appeared.